Sadness and hatred for fellow human beings

*****Apologies, this is a self indulgent, cathartic post*****

This evening I was driving along a busy main road. I saw an animal dart across the road, then horrifyingly saw that the animal in question had been hit, was thrashing and leaping about on the carriageway, and was identifiably a cat. The driver - who would have definitely noticed as part of their car was knocked off in the impact - drove off, as did at least one following vehicle. I stopped for two reasons: 1) my car stopped anyone else running over the poor creature and 2) there was a (faint) possibility that a vet could have been called to do something. A driver in the opposite direction also stopped and she and her (adult) daughter stood alongside myself as we stood uselessly watching this animal die, while wringing our hands and wondering what to do. That process took only around a minute, suggesting although thrashing, the cat would almost certainly have been unconscious, and was probably pretty much dead on impact. Nicer than imagining the albeit brief but horrific suffering it would have had if aware.

Due simply to having a throw thing in my boot and being entirely unsqueamish (isn't blood amazingly bright red??), I lifted the cat off the carriageway onto the verge, my primary concern being for the owner should they find it. And having a need to always take-charge-and-do. A small mutter to the other stopper about Other People, and retarded ponderings on my part as to it not actually being sadder if it was a young cat, then we went on our wobbly ways.

I felt compelled to phone the vet. Do something! Be useful!

Yes, sorry to bother you at 10pm given that a dead animal doesn't exactly construe an emergency, but what is the protocol for a dead cat? Er, no, I can't take it home and bring it in to be scanned tomorrow and I do realise you're not actually asking me to do that. So nothing, and I shouldn't have phoned you.

The vet was lovely and exactly who I needed to speak to in order to stop jittering, even thought that's NOT what the emergency line's for.

Now, I don't consider that stopping, or moving the cat, was anything other than common courtesy to fellow humans. That was a living creature and deserved not to be suffering, and it was someone's pet and should not have been left to be macerated by passing vehicles.

What I cannot get my head round was that the driver didn't stop - I saw the cat before impact, and we were slowing down for a red light, stopping to avoid an animal wouldn't have been at all dangerous. Even giving the driver the benefit of the doubt that they didn't see the cat before impact, they sure would have felt it. What sort of person doesn't stop, even briefly, to see what's happened? I'm not too enamoured by the car(s??) that drove round the thrashing cat either.

Most people disgust me. Someone lost a pet tonight and the person responsible didn't care.